A Strong Foundation In Christ

By Mark Bowling

A Strong Foundation in Christ

Living a Purposeful and Successful Life from Now into Eternity!

In this ever-important book, Mark teaches the elementary principles of Christ in such a way that anyone can understand and act upon them. The truths of the Scripture are presented clearly so that a believer of any spiritual level can understand and grow in the faith. Pastors can use this book to make disciples and train new leaders. This book will establish you in the foundational doctrines of Christ in a practical manner, as well as inspire you to live in the supernatural power of God as you read the wonderful testimonies of God's miracle-working power that Mark has witnessed. This book will help you to:

• Establish yourself on the foundation of Christ in a way that affects your everyday living from now into eternity.
• Experience freedom from sin.
• Walk in your purchased healing and other redemptive benefits.
• Live a Spirit-filled life, free from doctrinal fads that lead you astray from your God-given purpose.
• Build a strong foundation for a supernatural life and ministry.
• Influence others for Christ and eternity.
• Multiply as you teach others these truths.
• Be encouraged about your future and your coming rewards.
• Hear the words, "Well done, you good and faithful servant."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Impact Ministries International
• Release date: Sep 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223312963

Mark Bowling

Mark Bowling and his wife, Victoria, have been preaching the gospel of Christ full time since 1995. They have lived as missionaries in Mexico and India. Together, they founded Global Impact Ministries International, a ministry dedicated to taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached peoples of the world. They have conducted many Good News Miracle Festivals and Faith and Fire Leadership Conferences in several nations. Thousands are saved, healed, and filled with the Holy Spirit at the festivals. The conferences mobilize local ministers to plant churches in unreached neighborhoods and villages. Thousands of churches have been planted by the local ministers who have been strengthened and challenged at the conferences. The ministry is highly involved in the liberation of persecuted Christians from bonded labor in Asia as well as rescue homes for children. Mark and Victoria have a television program called Impact Today, which is broadcast worldwide. Through this outreach, millions are hearing the gospel. So far, more than one million souls have turned to Christ through the various outreaches of GIMI. For more information, please visit www.globalimpactministries.com.

Book preview

Part 1: Repent and Believe

Chapter 1: Christ Crucified

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:1–5

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Notice what Paul said: For I determined. That means he made a quality decision with a firm purpose. He resolved not to succumb to the pressure to use fancy words or complicated teaching and doctrine to impress people, especially when he arrived in Corinth.

He had just come from Athens, where he had preached an eloquent message and had seen little in the way of results (see Acts 17:16–18:1). Although the message was very creative and excellent, it seems like he had no demonstration of the power of God, resulting in only a few converts. When he departed from Athens and traveled to Corinth, he made the quality decision to preach the simple gospel: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

What was the result? And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. This should be our message anytime we go to a new community: Jesus Christ and Him crucified!

If you continue reading, you see that in verse 6 he says, However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature. In other words, he didn’t just preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified forever, but that is how he began to lay the foundation. Once the people were saved, healed, and filled with the Holy Spirit, he would progress to other subjects, leading them into maturity. But even then, the gospel of Christ was central to it all.

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The Power of the Gospel

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. Romans 1:16

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Paul said, For I am not ashamed. Why was he not ashamed of the gospel? It’s very simple: It works. The gospel message always works. IT IS THE POWER OF GOD to salvation, healing, deliverance, soundness, and wholeness for everyone who believes. Amen!

I’ll never forget, as long as I live, our very first crusade in Vijayawada, India, in January of 2001. A young man was sitting in the front of the crowd with a crippled right hand and arm. His hand was withered, and his arm was drawn toward his body. When I was near the conclusion of the message, this man made his way up to the platform and was suddenly to my left, interrupting my sermon. So I stopped preaching and asked what he wanted. And there he was, happily demonstrating to us and the multitude that God Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ, had just healed his hand and arm. Hallelujah!

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because these demonstrations of power occur everywhere we go as people hear, believe, and act upon its message.

For example, after traveling home at the completion of one of our miracle festivals, one of the pastors who participated in the festival contacted Sagar, our director in India. He said a family at the festival had a boy who was about nine years old who got struck with polio as a baby. He had never stood on his feet because one of his legs hung lame and was about an inch shorter than the other.

No miracle manifested in the child during the festival, but the family believed our gospel message. Once the festival was over, they held their child up on his feet in the middle of their living room and said, Stand, in Jesus’ name. Then they let go of him, and immediately he began to fall over. So they caught him and repeated this two or three times with seemingly no results. They repeated this a second night. Nothing appeared to happen. A third night. Nothing. But on the fourth morning, when they arose out of bed, they found their son standing, healed in the middle of the living room!

The gospel is the power of God! If you preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified like the Bible presents Him, there will be demonstrations of the Spirit and of power. If you are going to present the gospel thoroughly and effectively, you have to understand these four things:

The creation of people

The sin of people

Jesus’ substitution for people

Our restoration

The Creation of People

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then He created the first man and woman. They were created perfect and were made in the image of God. They were righteous, holy, happy, and content, with no sickness and no disease in their bodies. There was no guilt, no shame, no fear, no anxiety, and no depression. They were made in terms of equality with God so that God could have someone to fellowship with. The first man, Adam, could look into the face of God without any sense of guilt or inferiority. There was no sin. They were righteous like God.

The Sin of People

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God’s enemy, the devil, came to Adam and Eve and tempted them to question God. He convinced them to disobey God. When they disobeyed, they died. They died spiritually.

God had said to them, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2:17). They disobeyed and ate of it. They died. They didn’t die physically at the moment, but they died spiritually. And their spiritual death eventually led to their physical death. They became slaves to Satan, whom they believed instead of God’s word. Satan became the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4).

When Satan became the god of this age, disease, fear, anxiety, depression, lust, pride, murder, cancer, and every form of evil and destructive force entered the human race. We had sinned. We were guilty and deserving of eternal punishment.

Jesus’ Substitution

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But thank God, the Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:8), and in His great love for us, God made a way to redeem us back to Himself: Jesus came. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). The King of glory, the Son of the living God, the One who inhabits eternity (He doesn’t live in time; time lives in Him; He is the Eternal One.) chose to clothe Himself with human flesh and lay aside his divine powers. He became subservient to the Father. He became a human being.

Now, if you look in the book of Acts at the presentation of the gospel message through the apostles, they frequently mention His ministry. So I do too. What do I mean? His sinless life and His miracle ministry. Here is one important verse that you should know:

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Acts 10:38

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They mentioned His miracle ministry. Why is that significant? Because, number one, it reveals the will of God for you. The ministry of Jesus is the will of God in action. The ministry of Jesus shows what Jesus can do for you now because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). I know this is simple stuff, but it’s good to be reminded. It’s good to be stirred up. Preach that Jesus worked miracles. And if He worked miracles then, He works miracles now.

We minister in the name of Jesus. If Jesus is dead, His name would have no power. But because He has risen from the dead and is alive right now, when we minister in His name, He continues to do the same things He always did. He heals the sick, and He opens blind eyes. He opens the ears of the deaf. He causes the lame to walk. He raises the dead still today.

But the gospel’s core, the centerpiece, is Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf. Isaiah 53:4–5 describes what He accomplished when He hung on the cross.

However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, And our pains that He carried; Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, Struck down by God, and humiliated. But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:4–5 (NASB20)

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It says that Christ bore our sicknesses and carried our pains. The word bore is the Hebrew word nasa. The word carried is sabal. Both of these Hebrew words signify a heavy burden and denote an actual substitution and a complete removal of the thing borne. So Jesus bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains. He became our substitute. God placed on Him our sicknesses, diseases, and pain. He took them and completely removed them from us. He died with them, was buried with them, and rose again without them. Hallelujah! That is the gospel. It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.

Let’s look at it again, starting with verse 3: He was despised and abandoned by men, A man of great pain and familiar with sickness; And like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for Him. However...

Many translations correctly say, Surely.... That means for certain. It is done. It’s sure. You can stake your life on it. Surely what? It was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, and our pains that He carried!

Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, struck down by God, and humiliated. Jesus was afflicted, struck down by God, and humiliated!

But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 (NASB20)

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He was pierced for our offenses—our transgressions, revolts, rebellions, and sins!

Now, are you ready for this? Pierced comes from the Hebrew word chalal. It means to profane, defile, pollute, desecrate, fatally wound, bore through. We’re talking about the holy, pure, spotless Son of God! When Jesus became our substitute on the cross, He was profaned. He was defiled. He was polluted with our sin, with our shame and guilt. He was desecrated for our transgressions. He was bruised. He was crushed. He was beaten to pieces for our iniquities.

The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him. The New American Standard Bible rightly uses the term well-being here. It comes from the Hebrew word shalom. It means peace, health, happiness, wholeness, prosperity, tranquility, and rest. All of that! He was punished so all of that could become yours. So that you could be made whole. So that you could be healed. So that you could be made righteous. Nothing missing. Nothing broken. Completely sound in your spirit, soul, emotions, mind, body—every part of you, even your finances. Total well-being! You go from being a loser to a winner overnight when you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Hallelujah! All because of Him!

Let’s keep reading. This is rich. Meditate on this and go preach it. Then demonstrate it! Notice verse 6:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

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We are discussing what God did for us when Jesus died on the cross. The Bible says the LORD, Jehovah God, laid upon Jesus the iniquity of us all. The term iniquity is a significant word in the original language. It comes from the Hebrew word aon. It means perversity, depravity, iniquity, guilt or punishment of iniquity. It includes three things:

Our iniquity

The guilt of our iniquity

The consequence of or the punishment for our iniquity

And the Bible says that the LORD, Jehovah God, placed on Jesus the iniquity of us all. Of us all! Our sin, rebellion, perversity, its evil consequences, sicknesses, diseases, depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, poverty, and curse—were all laid on Jesus. But that’s not where God stopped. Jesus experienced the wrath of Almighty God in our place.

The Bible says in Romans 4:25 (AMP) that Jesus Christ was be-trayed and crucified because of our sins, and was raised [from the dead] because of our justification [our acquittal—absolving us of all sin before God]. When Jesus rose again, the price had been paid in full. As your representative, your substitute, the one who took your place, He experienced the full wrath of God so that you wouldn’t have to.

There is an old Gospel song that says this:

He paid a debt He did not owe.

I owed a debt I could not pay.

I needed someone to wash my sins away.

And now I sing a brand new song—

Amazing Grace!

Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.

(Author: Ellis J. Crum; 1977 Ellis J. Crum, Publisher (Admin. by Sacred Sélections R.E. Winsett LLC))

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It was a legal transaction between Christ and the Father God. He took our sin so that we could have His righteousness. He took our diseases so that we could have His healing and health. He took our curse so that we could have His blessing. He took our poverty so that we could have His abundant supply. He took our death so that we could have eternal life.

He died. He was buried with all our sins and all our maladies. He put it all away. Then He rose again, righteous and without any sickness, disease, or curse.

In His resurrection, He utterly defeated our enemy, Satan, and stripped him of any power to rule over us. He gave us the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt [us] (Luke 10:19).

That’s the gospel: first, the creation of people; second, our sin; and third, Jesus’ substitution in our place, where He legally purchased us back to God. Through His blood, He obtained eternal redemption for us and rose again because of our justification.

But there’s a fourth and vital part of the gospel message: our restoration. Our restoration is dependent on how we respond to what He did for us. This is where we begin the journey through the six foundational doctrines, starting with repentance from dead works and faith toward God.

Acknowledgment: In presenting the four points of the gospel, I am indebted to the teachings of the late Dr. T.L. Osborn.

Personal Reflection and Application

How did sin enter the world, and what was the consequence?

How does the sin of humanity impact our relationship with God?

Can you share an example of the power of the gospel in action?

What are the four things we need to understand to present the gospel thoroughly and effectively?

How did Jesus become our substitute, and what did He accomplish on the cross?

List at least 5 people you can pray for and share the gospel with this week.

Chapter 2: Repentance Defined

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. Hebrews 6:1

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Then He said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Luke 24:46–47

In the previous chapter, we saw that the gospel is the good news of what Jesus accomplished for us in His death, burial, and resurrection. But we ended the chapter by saying that there is still one vital point to the gospel: our restoration, which is dependent on our response to the message.

Notice in Luke 24:46 that Jesus mentioned His substitution when He said, Thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. When Jesus died and rose again, He legally purchased our redemption. He secured our forgiveness, deliverance, freedom, and healing. But what He procured for us must be appropriated. We must receive it and experience the reality of it.

In the eyes of God, the whole world is redeemed. The price has been paid. I did not say everyone is going to heaven, but the price has been legally paid. The prostitute, drunkard, murderer, and any other kind of sinner you can think of have been redeemed. For them to be saved, Jesus doesn’t have to die again. They just need to hear the good news and respond.

So again, Jesus said in verse 46, "Thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day..., but notice verse 47: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

We preach the gospel, but the end of that message includes repentance and faith. Mark’s account of the Great Commission says, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes... (Mark 16:15–16a).

Jesus said in Mark 1:15, Repent, and believe in the gospel.

Some scriptures, in dealing with salvation, mention believing and faith with no mention of repentance. Other scriptures call for repentance without expressing the need for faith. In this passage, Jesus demands both.

When it comes to salvation, repentance and faith are inseparable. Why? Because a person cannot sincerely repent without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and one cannot truly believe in the Lord without repenting. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin.

Let’s consider what Jesus said to Nicodemus:

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And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:14–15

Jesus was referencing an incident found in Numbers 21:4–9. The children of Israel had greatly sinned in speaking against God and Moses for their lack of food and water and voicing their disdain for the daily manna. And judgment came upon them. But they acknowledged and turned from their error when they said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you;... After they repented, God instructed Moses to make a brass replica of a venomous snake and erect it on a pole. Everyone who simply looked upon the snake with an absorbing gaze lived.

Notice the relation between looking with an absorbing gaze and believing. Everyone that looked at the brass snake hanging on the pole, a type and shadow of Christ being made a curse on the cross, was forgiven, healed, and delivered. Today, anyone who believes in Christ, Who became a curse for us on the cross, is forgiven, healed, and delivered (see Gal. 3:13).

Since Jesus and sin stand in direct opposition, you must turn from sin to believe in Christ. This occurs in a simultaneous act, requiring a complete 180-degree turning away from sin towards Christ. It’s not just merely cleaning up your life and trying to get God to accept you through the performance of good deeds. It’s turning from sin and immediately turning to Christ and His work on the cross. Once you turn to Him, in that moment, His grace does the work of cleansing and deliverance.

Attempting to cease sinning without turning to Christ is actually placing trust in human effort and good works, which are essentially lifeless. In this case, someone has only turned 90-degrees, so to speak, and continues to face a direction away from God. Ultimately, they will gravitate back to the allurement of sin while being in religious bondage because only the power of Christ can change the heart.

Thus, it is possible to seemingly repent and not be saved, but it is impossible to be saved without genuine repentance. Repentance requires Biblical faith, and faith cannot exist without repentance. The two are interdependent. If a person repents without faith, they are likely only seeking to reform their outward behavior, which is not repentance at all. Outward reformation alone cannot please God. Conversely, if they claim to believe without repentance, they have an empty confession or mere mental assent. Therefore, it is vital to comprehend the Biblical meaning of true repentance and genuine faith.

There are misconceptions about repentance, and it is the very first stone of the foundation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the elementary principles of Christ.

The Greek word translated as repent according to Strong’s Concordance means to think differently, to reconsider, to morally feel compunction.

What is compunction? It’s the feeling of guilt that follows doing something bad. It is the pricking of the conscience. Another dictionary says it is the anxiety that arises from the awareness of guilt.

Vine’s An Expository of New Testament Words says the Greek word for repent means to change the mind or purpose. If we put all that together, repentance involves a change of mind, feeling, and purpose, which results in an outward change of action. If there is no outward change of action, there was no genuine repentance.

The outward change of action is not repentance. It is the result of repentance. You inwardly change your mind, purpose, attitude, and feelings toward sin and your ways, then turn toward God. This results in an outward change of action.

Once again, true repentance encompasses three things:

Change of mind

Change of feeling

Change of purpose

It always involves turning from something (dead works) and turning to God.

Repentance Is Not Remorse

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Let’s talk about that feeling aspect for a moment. Repentance is not being emotional but earnest. We have examples in the Bible of men who showed remorse for their sin but never turned from their sin to God.

King Saul showed remorse. First Samuel 24 records the incident when David could have killed Saul but spared his life, even though Saul was hunting him out of hatred and jealousy. First Samuel 24:16– 17 says, So it was, when David had finished speaking these words to Saul, that Saul said, ‘Is this your voice, my son David?’ And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. Then he said to David: ‘You are more righteous than I; for you have rewarded me with good, whereas I have rewarded you with evil.’

He acted sorry. He wept. He showed emotion. But he didn’t repent. The same scenario is repeated as recorded in 1 Samuel 26:21: Then Saul said, ‘I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will harm you no more, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Indeed I have played the fool and erred exceedingly.’

Once again, it’s the same thing happening. Over and over again, Saul would get all upset and say, I’m sorry, David! but he’d do it again the next day! Remorse is not repentance.

Remember Judas Iscariot? He wept. He was remorseful. But he did not repent. The rich young ruler was sorrowful as he walked away from Jesus (Mark 10:22). There is a worldly sorrow that produces death, but there is a godly sorrow that produces repentance unto salvation (2 Cor. 7:10).

On the other hand, Job exhibited godly sorrow unto repentance when he encountered the presence of God. He said, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5–6).

When Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, he cried out, Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts (Is. 6:5).

After Jesus borrowed Simon Peter’s boat, He told him, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’ But Simon answered and said to Him, ‘Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.’ Notice Peter said, net in